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The Importance of Lived Experience in Making Change
***There is a content warning for this post as it briefly mentions self-harm***
I am a mature student entering the 3rd year of my degree, joint honours psychology and criminology. My choice in academic study (and hopeful career path) is largely informed by my own life experiences which have and will continue to be one of my biggest strengths. I have been in mental health services as a patient since my pre-teens and I have worked in a variety of mental health settings including inpatient forensic mental health and rehabilitation. My criminological interest was piqued after being a victim to violent crimes as an adult. All of this, as well as some conversations I have had with lecturers and peers over the last 2 years, has me thinking about the influence and importance of lived experiences in our academic and career choices, and the opportunities that lived experiences create for making change and battling adversity.
When we experience anything in life, big or small, positive or negative, we can gain incredible insight about ourselves and the world around us in a way that we would never have done if we didn’t have those experiences. It can change or set the trajectory of our lives. When we are in the correct place in our lives, our recovery, our minds to be able to pour from a cup that isn’t empty, we can find ourselves in an amazing place where we can help others and inspire change for those who have experienced or are likely to experience what we have. Perhaps even the ones who never have and never will. All equally as important.
Every system, service, or organisation needs to have the input from those who have experienced it from the other side. We need to know how the work is being perceived at the other end. It can be really difficult to collate feedback, especially the positive stuff, or see end-to-end results and we find that if no-one speaks up, what will be done is the easy thing, the cheap thing, or the well-intentioned but mismatched thing. Of course, we may be able to go beyond advice and become a part of a service or a voice ourselves and ‘be the change.’ We can inspire change by instilling more trust in others that we truly understand their predicament and that we have moved or are moving through it, showing them that it is possible or that they’re not alone. It can be refreshing and a huge learning experience for others in the service, as a user or provider, who may be stuck, going through the motions unequipped with knowledge of how to make change for the better, especially in sectors that can be particularly challenging day-to-day.
If I may give a personal example from when I worked on a psychiatric ward for forensic rehabilitation. I worked with many patients who felt as though it was staff vs patients, that we couldn’t possibly know what it was like for them, that we were only there because we were paid, and because they were detained against their will, we had to keep them there. I didn’t hide my personal experiences, my real reasons for being there, but no one really asked so I didn’t shout about them either. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, for reasons of infection control, I had no choice but to obey a rule, ‘‘bare-below-the-elbow.’’ That meant I had to wear short sleeves on the ward. It meant revealing to my patients the scars I bear from self-harm. This prompted lots of questions, some less awkward than others, but it opened up so many wonderful conversations and breakthroughs. I spoke with my patients about knowing how that feels, that I’ve been on the medication they’re struggling with, and I’ve done the therapy they’re reluctant to try. It connected me to my patients and my work in such a wonderful way and meant my patients trusted me more, trusted the process more and engaged in ways they haven’t before. It meant that when decisions were made about patient care or ward processes, I could advocate from a place of empathy and understanding and in cases where people have their rights reduced or taken away, detained against their will, are vulnerable, are disadvantaged, we can’t do it enough.
Being loud about our experiences means raising awareness, breaking down stigma and stereotypes to create more inclusive and accepting societies, building supportive communities, and helping people along their path. It can serve as inspiration for people who may never have even given a thought to their experiences, things they witness or people who experience hardship and keep it under wraps.
Perhaps this even serves as a little nudge to be open to the experiences of others, to recognise and challenge your own biases, the things you may or may not understand. If you find yourself in a position to decide who to hire, interact with, which project to run; find the lived experience, consider the people who just need a little more support and feel like a little risk, because you never know what it could do. We can apply this to healthcare, criminology, charity, or anything that feels like it is our calling.
It can be such a tough and slow process, it won’t always be welcomed, it might not always work out. There may be people, services and societal norms or stigma that have an agenda or goals that don’t align with yours, not everybody likes change or will be willing to put in the effort. We may not always get the answers we are looking for because of the complex world we live in. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, right?
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Reflecting on Research Access
I am currently undertaking a part-time PhD and, as part of my qualitative research project, I need to keep a reflexivity diary, reflecting on my own position in relation to the subjects of my research. My first entry reflects on the process of negotiating access, and I thought it might make an interesting subject for a criminology blog!
As a reflexive qualitative researcher it is important constantly to reflect on my own position in relation to my research and my participants. I am about to start collecting data but only after a very lengthy process of negotiating access (12 months). This process was one in which my own position and history had a significant influence.
For my first project, I am conducting detailed qualitative interviews with serving prisoners. This required approval from the HMPPS National Research Committee (NRC). As a former HMPPS employee, I thought that my inside knowledge would be helpful – indeed at a later stage, in negotiating access to specific prisons, I think it has been. However, at the stage of submitting my application for national approval my prior experience added emotional baggage.
I worked for the Prison Service for nearly 12 years. I really enjoyed working with prisoners and I also enjoyed the camaraderie of working within the tight community of a prison. I worked with some lovely individuals who were dedicated to helping people and who supported me personally in my career. However, the Prison Service is a large, unwieldy organisation and large unwieldy organisations do not always treat individuals well. There were several times in my career when I felt that the organisation had treated me badly: when a recruitment freeze was introduced just after I passed the assessment centre so that I was stuck in limbo without a permanent job; when the in-house MSc was abolished (with no replacement) just before I was due to start it; when I ended up taking on my boss’ responsibilities as well as my own with no promotion or increase in pay; when my request to work part-time after maternity leave was declined; when my post was put on the “surplus list” during a phase of job cuts. It was not all negative – as I say, I enjoyed the work very much, I was proud to be a prison psychologist and there were times when the organisation was good to me (I eventually had a different distance learning MSc funded by the Prison Service, and I was able to take a 12 month career break following my maternity leave) but those negative incidents felt like personal insults when I was working hard. The biggest kick in the teeth came more recently in 2020 when I applied to re-join HMPPS when my tenure on the Parole Board came to an end. I had an unremarkable remote interview and was then turned down. I knew that HMPPS advertised for qualified psychologists every month, so there were plenty of vacancies – that they didn’t want me when I knew I was a good psychologist and had already given them the best years of my career really hurt.
Since then, I have started my PhD and secured a great job with St Andrew’s Healthcare which suits me better and has taken me in a new direction. The memory of the rejection was still lingering, however, when my initial research application to the HMPPS NRC was rejected. I felt like they were kicking me in the teeth again. My initial application was for a piece of research with both a quantitative and a qualitative element. The feedback in relation to the quantitative project was so devastating that I scrapped this part of the research altogether and focused on the qualitative part only. To be fair, the feedback was justified and the re-written proposal is for a much more methodologically sound piece of research, but it still felt personal at the time.
Conducting research during a pandemic is not easy. By the time I had responded to the NRC feedback and was ready to re-submit, there was a resurgence in COVID-19 cases and the NRC were not accepting any further applications. I was advised not to re-submit until applications were being accepted again, otherwise I would have been rejected with no chance to re-submit again. This caused a three-month delay and I had to chase to find out when applications re-opened. When I finally re-submitted, my application was not rejected, but I did receive a long list of requests for further information. Some of these seemed very petty. Responding to them was a significant piece of work and the sense of personal rejection and being made to jump through hoops returned. I was very grateful to one of my supervisors who read my responses before I submitted them and helped to remove the irritation that was evident!
Having submitted the answers to these further questions I waited for ages for a reply. By this stage, I was on first name terms with the reviewer on the NRC. She had sent my application for further feedback from the HMPPS Interventions Team (one of whom I had worked closely with in the past). I was given further questions to answer (which seemed to miss the point of what I was trying to achieve). I tried my hardest to remain positive and to suppress the irritation. HMPPS had the power and were entitled to it. They had every right to reject my research application. Just because I had been a good employee in the past, did not oblige them to give me research access. I resigned myself to receiving a final rejection and started to think of other ways to explore my research questions. And as I reached this point of acceptance, I finally received a positive response saying that my application had been accepted!
Since then, things have moved quickly. I revised my University ethics application in the light of all the amendments I had made following the HMPPS feedback and this was quickly approved. I approached individual prisons for specific access and received positive responses from HMP Grendon and HMP Onley – in these cases possibly reaping the benefits of personal connections from my time in the Prison Service. I will be going into HMP Grendon in early January to start to recruit participants. I no longer work for HMPPS or for the Parole Board, but my status as a Forensic Psychologist and as a former HMPPS employee and Parole Board member will have an influence on my relationships with participants. They will have had experiences with psychologists (and may have had experiences with the Parole Board) which may be positive or negative and which may facilitate or hinder trust in me as a researcher. I will need to look out for these influences and reflect on them as the research progresses.
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Are you faking it? : Impostor Syndrome in Academia
Bethany Davies is an Associate Lecturer teaching modules in the first year.
I really enjoyed my time at university but for me it felt almost like I’d got in by some whim of luck, I worked hard to get there but I still felt as though I had got in by chance. Which meant by I had even started; I feared others would think that too and I would become exposed. I’d picture that in class everyone would know something about a really important event in history that I was ignorant to not have heard of. I remember wishing there was a documentary I could watch or a book I could read that gave a brief summary of everything that was meant to be important so I could at least have a basic knowledge of everything and maybe I could fake the rest.
Impostor syndrome doesn’t go away, it evolves and alters and that doesn’t mean it necessarily grows or decreases in time. But rather it just seems like an annoying person sat in the back of hall that occasionally shouts loud enough that you can hear it.
I think it’s important to talk about it, I’m not even sure what it could be regarded as, I don’t believe it be a disease or a form of anxiety but rather something just in its own class that to a degree I like to think everybody has. It doesn’t have to ruin your university experience, it didn’t ruin mine, but it was certainly a part of it, almost like a step in the process; go to lectures, deal with the feeling that I’m pretending I belong there, go home, revise.
I had really only became aware of it properly further in my studies and it continues when working in academia. The labels of what degree you have or what level you are and how many certificates you have can give you the confidence you need to overcome this, but it can also feed it.
There will be students starting University in the next few weeks who already feel like this, asking questions of themselves or even dreading having to talk in lectures in case they reveal what they most fear – that they are a fake and do not actually know what they think they should know by now. There will be others submitting essays or dissertations who think they have got to where they are by pure luck and chance and that this is the time where it might be made public that they are not worthy of their previous grades. There are individuals who are considered as ‘Experts’ on a particular subject by everyone but themselves as they feel the area is so vast that even they are at the basics of the subject.
Even when I received high grades, or was given positive feedback, it didn’t silence the thoughts that I somehow didn’t earn them. From graduation to working in academia, I thought that would be it, I would prove to myself that I knew enough and that I wasn’t an impostor. To an extent, it did help, mainly because I didn’t have to prove myself in an essay or a test anymore. But I still think it’s there, because I know there is always another step when you are in academia, you can keep going forever and you’ll never truly be done.
If that sounds familiar, it is something you can take some comfort in the number of others with the same feelings. It should give you comfort because it shows the inaccuracy in those intrusive thoughts, as surely, we can’t all be faking it and impostors in our academic journeys? And if we are… then there isn’t really a problem either.
I’m not a psychologist nor would I be so impostorous to claim to be (do you like what I did there?) but I think we all know that the negative things we say about ourselves are not true, but they are a way to stop ourselves from doing something out of our comfort zone, which in itself is subjective – but that’s starting a philosophical ramble.
This blog post isn’t to make you overly aware of your fears nor do you have to address them right now. But rather, my intention is letting students know you are not alone, it doesn’t go away but it can get better if you separate how you think you feel about yourself from the reality of what you are achieving whether that be good feedback or even achieving a degree. The same way as receiving negative feedback, should not reaffirm your fears. Learn to accept that you will never know everything and that it’s okay to not know something even if everyone makes you feel like you should. Be kind to yourself in your studies, otherwise you might forget to enjoy the process of learning.
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Three Tips for Uni:
There are lots of blogs, articles, and Youtube videos which offer some useful tips for going to university, yet it always appears as though students haven’t watched/read them or in the excitement of coming to university they have forgotten what they were. So in the hope that new and existing students might read this, here are my 3 tips for studying at university, and they apply to all levels:
1) READ!!!
At various stages throughout your degree you will be told that you are reading for a degree, and that is the truth. Now reading may not be everybody’s cup of tea, however it is vital to attaining a degree. Lecturers will provide reading lists for your modules, and readings for seminars, however it is vital you go beyond these lists. In first year everything is new, and the likelihood of you being experienced in reading academic journals and textbooks is pretty slim, and therefore there is a good chance you’ll be reading things that don’t appear to make much sense. That is how I remember most of my first year at undergrad! However, perseverance is key: if you didn’t understand it the first time round, take a break and read it again! Still not making sense, then read it again. Variety in source selection and reading is also key, do not feel like you have to read everything off the reading lists, or that those are the only sources you should be engaging with: get creative, mix it up! To change a phrase from a certain, loveable but forgetful blue fish: ‘Just keep reading, just keep reading, just keep reading reading reading, what do we do, we read, read…’.
2) TALK!!
University is a new experience and it is very different from school! There are no teachers who will give you the answers, but rather lecturers who will help you harness the tools in order to pursue answers. Even returning students who are familiar with the university format of being vocal in seminars still feel uncomfortable the first few weeks back as they find their rhythm. Reading is key to acquire knowledge, but so is talking. Share your ideas and understandings with your friends, colleagues and lecturers. Answer the questions put to you by others. Ask questions when you are unsure or curious. Challenge views. Seminars run much smoother for everyone when discussion takes place, and discussion cannot happen without first reading and second talking. It can be uncomfortable and unnerving, even at MSc level when you’ve had 3 years of undergrad experience of talking in front of others and sharing ideas. It is not easy, and there is always fear of being wrong or sounding silly, but that is how we learn. I’m not saying you should go around talking to everyone and anyone about anything and everything, because I most certainly would not do that. But in seminars and lectures where knowledge is the goal, talking is key.
3) ENGAGE WITH FEEDBACK!
Finally, part of university life is assessments. Now if you are successful with reading and talking, then the assessment part of university should be less scary and more positive than if you otherwise have not read or asked questions/shared ideas. A large part of assessment is writing style, and there are various resources provided by the university at your disposal to help improve your writing, and to tailor your writing depending on the assessment. But a really crucial and essential tool is the feedback given to you by your lecturers. Whilst the feedback given to you on a piece of assessment is specific to that assessment in terms of content covered, it can also be applied to future assignments and therefore should be engaged with. We spend a large amount of time constructing feedback for students, in order to help improve their work and ultimately to help them succeed but very few students engage with it. If we have said you need to engage with more sources, the likelihood is that this needs to be done for all your assessments, similarly if there is a referencing issue or writing style concern. Engaging with your feedback is one of the quickest ways to improve your work, and if you do not understand the feedback, TALK to your lecturer about it.
Studying any level at university is very different to A-levels and college: it is ultimately independent learning where the lecturers will guide you and help you attain the skills required to complete your degree. It is an exciting and challenging time regardless of which stage you are at in your academic journey, and ultimately when you look back it should be something you are proud of. So to new students, welcome, to returning students, welcome back, and to you all: GOOD LUCK! 😊
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Come Together
For much of the year, the campus is busy. Full of people, movement and voice. But now, it is quiet… the term is over, the marking almost complete and students and staff are taking much needed breaks. After next week’s graduations, it will be even quieter. For those still working and/or studying, the campus is a very different place.
This time of year is traditionally a time of reflection. Weighing up what went well, what could have gone better and what was a disaster. This year is no different, although the move to a new campus understandably features heavily. Some of the reflection is personal, some professional, some academic and in many ways, it is difficult to differentiate between the three. After all, each aspect is an intrinsic part of my identity.
Over the year I have met lots of new people, both inside and outside the university. I have spent many hours in classrooms discussing all sorts of different criminological ideas, social problems and potential solutions, trying always to keep an open mind, to encourage academic discourse and avoid closing down conversation. I have spent hour upon hour reading student submissions, thinking how best to write feedback in a way that makes sense to the reader, that is critical, constructive and encouraging, but couched in such a way that the recipient is not left crushed. I listened to individuals talking about their personal and academic worries, concerns and challenges. In addition, I have spent days dealing with suspected academic misconduct and disciplinary hearings.
In all of these different activities I constantly attempt to allow space for everyone’s view to be heard, always with a focus on the individual, their dignity, human rights and social justice. After more than a decade in academia (and even more decades on earth!) it is clear to me that as humans we don’t make life easy for ourselves or others. The intense individual and societal challenges many of us face on an ongoing basis are too often brushed aside as unimportant or irrelevant. In this way, profound issues such as mental and/or physical ill health, social deprivation, racism, misogyny, disablism, homophobia, ageism and many others, are simply swept aside, as inconsequential, to the matters at hand.
Despite long standing attempts by politicians, the media and other commentators to present these serious and damaging challenges as individual failings, it is evident that structural and institutional forces are at play. When social problems are continually presented as poor management and failure on the part of individuals, blame soon follows and people turn on each other. Here’s some examples:
Q. “You can’t get a job?”
A “You must be lazy?”
Q. “You’ve got a job but can’t afford to feed your family?
A. “You must be a poor parent who wastes money”
Q. “You’ve been excluded from school?”
A. “You need to learn how to behave?”
Q. “You can’t find a job or housing since you came out of prison?”
A. “You should have thought of that before you did the crime”
Each of these questions and answers sees individuals as the problem. There is no acknowledgement that in twenty-first century Britain, there is clear evidence that even those with jobs may struggle to pay their rent and feed their families. That those who are looking for work may struggle with the forces of racism, sexism, disablism and so on. That the reasons for criminality are complex and multi-faceted, but it is much easier to parrot the line “you’ve done the crime, now do the time” than try and resolve them.
This entry has been rather rambling, but my concluding thought is, if we want to make better society for all, then we have to work together on these immense social problems. Rather than focus on blame, time to focus on collective solutions.
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Who cares what I think?
Erzsébet Korb (1923) Girl’s Portrait (Thinker; Contemplation)
The other week, I went for a meal with a friend. The food was lovely, the staff and environment welcoming and friendly and company, fabulous. A couple of days later I was thinking about that evening and I wondered why I had not felt the need to write some positive feedback on google, or similar. The answer was because I felt that I and my dining companion, had expressed our pleasure both in word and deed (the plates were clean!). Thus, the relationship between diners and restaurant staff had been overwhelmingly positive and this had been expressed by both.
However, wherever we go nowadays, we are regularly confronted by requests for feedback; “how is my driving?”, “did you enjoy your meal?” “would you recommend our services to others”? Often these questions are accompanied by Likert scales, so we can record our opinion on almost everything. Sometimes we might take some time to consider the options, other times we might just tick random boxes, more usually (if I’m anything to go by) I just don’t engage with such requests. Despite their often-jolly appearance, these questions are not harmless, they have an impact, most usually to measure individuals’ performances.
Whether we engage with such requests or not, we do not question whether we are well-placed to judge. So, for instance, as a driver of probably one of the smallest cars on the market (that’s me!), I’m expected to be able to mark the driver of a lorry. Or someone, who has the cooking know-how of a small child (I speak for myself again!) is expected to form an opinion on a dish prepared by a trained chef, these questions are hardly fair. More importantly, my answers are meaningless; whilst I might respond “the lorry appeared to take the corner a bit wide”, I have neither knowledge or understanding of the turning circle of a 32-tonne lorry. Similarly, my thoughts about the heat of a Bangladeshi biryani or the sweetness of a mille-feuille is neither here nor there. Given I can neither drive a lorry nor cook these wonderful dishes, who am I to voice an opinion?
Of course, there are times when it is necessary to voice an opinion, the lorry driver is behaving in a dangerous manner liable to cause an accident, or the restaurant is serving rancid or rotten food; both scenarios likely to involve serious harm. However, these concerns would need to be raised immediately, either by alerting the police (in the case of the lorry) or the management of the restaurant. In the case of the latter, you may also feel it necessary to contact environmental health if you felt that your complaint had not been addressed or you had concerns about the hygiene of the restaurant in general. However, these types of problems are largely outside the feedback requested.
In many of the scenarios/environments we are asked to comment on, we are in a relationship with the other party. Take the restaurant; if I am friendly and polite to the staff, I can expect a reciprocal relationship. If I am rude and aggressive, is it any wonder staff behave in a different way. They are constrained by their professions to focus on customer service, but this should not lay them open to abuse. Whilst the old adage “the customer is always right” might be an excellent baseline, it is not possible for this always to be the case. As someone who has spent a previous lifetime working in retail, sometimes the customer can be obtuse, rude or even downright, ignorant and abusive. Adherence to such an adage, at all costs, can only open the way for abuse.
But what about those feedback forms? On a bad day, in a rash moment, or because I’m bored, I decide to complete one of these forms. The waiter kept me waiting, the food was too spicy, I didn’t like the feedback I was given on my job application, my essay was critiqued, my teeth haven’t been flossed regularly, I didn’t like the book recommended to me by the librarian or the book seller, I can’t believe my line manager has turned down my application for annual leave. I can easily demonstrate my unhappiness with the situation with a few judiciously placed ticks, circles or smiley/sad faces. Can I say the waiter, the chef, the HR professional, the lecturer, the dentist, the librarian, the book seller and my line manager are performing poorly? Can I say they are unprofessional, unprepared, untrained, lacking in knowledge or skills or just plain wrong? And if I do, is that fair or just? Furthermore, am I happy to be subject to the same judgement from people who do not share my experiences; professional or otherwise? Remember too much of this bad feedback, however flippant and lacking in evidence it may be, may lead to disciplinary action, including dismissal.
There is an oft-cited, albeit crude, truth: “Opinions are like arseholes; everyone has one”! Ultimately, whether we choose to share (either) in public is up to us! Think carefully before ticking those boxes and encourage others to do the same. Who knows, someone may well be ticking boxes about you!
Thoughts from the criminology team 